On The Town (1949)

I recently watched the movie "On The Town", and boy, was I positvely surprised. 

To be honest I had expected it to be rather boring, with a lot of dancing unrelated to the plot (there was a bit of that, but not as much as I expected).

So imagine my delight when I discovered how brilliant it all was. 

The plot is pretty simple: 3 sailors have a 24 hour leave in New York, and besides seeing the sights they also want to find some girls. When one of them gets infatuated with a girl he sees on a poster in the subway, his friends help him look for her all over the city, meeting a couple of girls themselves, on the way.

Throw in a few misunderstandings, a night on the town, a police chase and then you've got the gist of it.

Now the plot was really good but there is always more to a movie than the plot - as for instance the COSTUMES! 

They are brilliant and filled with 40's prettiness. Just look at that dress below: the cut, the colour, the contrasted pattern in the colour. I continuously found myself swooning and sighing over the dresses and the hair through the entire movie. It's like ever since I decided to adapt the 40's style for my own use, I watch movies from that time in a completely different way.

                          

But back to the movie and what I liked about it. Another important thing in a musical is naturally the songs. 

And the songs in this one did not disappoint. They were very catchy and most of them were just hilarious.

Like the opening song that really spoke to me on a personal level, when a harbour worker sings: "I feel like I'm not out of bed yet/ Oh, the sun's warm but my blanket's warmer." That is one relatable song :-).

Then of course there is "New York, New York, it's a wonderful town", which I sang for two days straight after watching this. 

"Main Street" is a very sweet song and accompanied by a little dancing sequence, it is just perfection.

Another sweet and humorous song is "You're Awful". From the title alone you wouldn't figure it's a love song, but just go and listen to it and you will understand.

The funniest song of them all is "You Can Count On Me". It is filled with puns and is really laugh out loud funny. 

                     

As I mentioned earlier, this movie also has its fair share of dancing, but with Gene Kelly in the lead that can't really surprise anyone.

Most of the dancing scenes I quite liked, because they were funny and it gave me more oppurtunities to admire the dresses in action ;-)

           

All in all I thought it a really funny and sweet movie, with gorgeous costumes and a better plot than I expected.

So it is definitely recommendable if you like musicals or movies from the 40's (or both). 

Now all there is there is left for me to do is watch the other 2 movies Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra made together: "Anchors Aweigh" and "High Society". 

That should be quite an enjoyable task, I think.

Have you seen "On The Town"?

How did you like it?